TheMadFool

Agreed. Simplicity has a special status in knowledge, especially science where it is an important condition for a good hypothesis. However, you will a...

To the extent that I can tell, time combines with space to provide a universal frame of reference, space-time, for everything in the universe. To use ...

Anything's possible.

The list I provided was meant to show how intelligence can lead to global catastrophes. After all man-made stuff like the industrial revolution and th...

I agree insofar as Sider thinks reward/punishment should be proportionate to the virtue/crime but this doesn't mean two morally indistinguishable peop...

:lol:

What are you going on about? Are you saying that all the goodness we see is just an outward appearance; that it hides a more sinister agenda? That thi...

Global warming, nuclear weapons, pollution, climate change, etc.

I agree. There were/are versions of religion where deities are powerful but not omni-powered. There usually is a God-king like Zeus or the like but Ze...

I feel you're using "good" and "bad" too flexibly. For me the agenda of the censors determines good or bad in a moral sense. If the censors want to pr...

I take your concern about the necessity for consequences to be proportionate to moral actions as valid. My personal belief is aligned with it. However...

I have nothing against the idea of process being the purpose rather than products. Assuming a designer for the moment it's possible that s/he wants to...

Yes and I'm interested to know what follows.

Yes and I also know he had a taste for topless bars :grin:

Firstly congratulations for the depth of your aesthetic sense. Secondly I have nothing against describing and viewing life as a chemical reaction but ...

How easy it is to reduce the wisdom of philosophy, the beauty of poetry and the joy of a painting to a chemical reaction in a chemist's lab. I heard a...

I think human reactions are tied to expectations. When a player gets a particular hand s/he isn't surprised because s/he didn't expect that particular...

Well, let me join you in believing everything is about balance. Would it be fair then to say that there has to be imbalance as a counterweight to bala...

I agree that reward/punishment should be proportionate to the good/bad deeds respectively we do. However, Sider's claim isn't about this particular as...

I have no doubts that censors think they're right and to be fair some things that are said or written have the real potential of flaring up simmering ...

You say that truths are different to truth. The former I interpret as facts of the world while the latter is a property of propositions and you claim ...

Cause and effect is the dummy. Morality is the clothes the dummy wears. Happiness is essentially cause and effect. Morality decides how this cause and...

Agreed but we would do well to attempt what's better than what's worse. Right? By the way I think fantasy is useful in giving us direction as it usual...

:chin: Didn't get that. Sorry.

The notion of deserving/not deserving exists in a causal framework as in what is deserved/not is an effect of one's actions which are causes. Causalit...

The climate change problem hasn't been framed in the way people understand - the one and only, universally comprehensible carrot-and-stick model. If t...

Censorship is like saying "I know what's good or bad for you" and no censorship is like saying "I know what's good or bad for me". Both seem wrong for...

is said only because, sometimes, we have to do what is clearly bad in other situations but necessary to achieve what is clearly good in another situat...

How about blending all of these various positions and look for truths that correspond to reality, are useful and cohere with whatever that needs coher...

Good (+), amoral (0), Bad (-) 0 is as sharp a border as it gets. One may not be that bad a guy. In fact one might be just a teensy weensy bad but that...

Sider's claim is that hell and heaven don't make sense because morality exhibits a continuum structure that allows for two morally similar people to h...

Why? How do you come to that conclusion? To make it easy for you, I ask for one plausible case of the Sider variety where two people who are morally i...

Let's look at what objective truth means. The way I said it and the way I think you understood it is that they are facts about the world which have ce...

This is really odd indeed. Are you saying that among the countless millions of our forefathers not one single person had the sense to say what you're ...

The way the world is and not what it ought to be should depress everyone. That's why life should evolve intelligence to recognize this is-oughy gap an...

:chin: What then are the foundations of our worldview?

We can create art but art can't create us and I'm quite sure you're not claiming we're simpler than the art we create.

Let's start this discussion on a new page but some of what we talked about will be relevant to us. What do you mean by: 1. Simplicity 2. Complexity Al...

In my humble opinion I think there's a problem with this view which is not quite clear to me but I'll lead you to it as best as I can. Hell is for evi...

Indeed we're not in a position to know the intentions of a creator if it exists. For all we know we may be just the random mold growing in its trash. ...

I don't intend to argue for god conceived as an intelligent designer. Our conversation is, not surprisingly, drifting in that direction because of the...

To tell you the truth I don't quite understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity too well. What I know is that the subjective dimens...

Yes. This is about empirical claims. However, if there's an empirical claim worth the effort it has to be universal in scope i.e. should take the form...

Let's not just "say" things and let's not get ahead of ourselves. As a friend of mine used to say "step by step". With due respect to your concerns I'...

:rofl: :rofl: You just keep repeating yourself. Is this North Korea? :joke: What do you mean well ordered? Kindly explain.

I was worried about that and was hoping someone would come up with something better. Let me cheat and use categorical logic to show that indeed I am, ...

(Sorry for the abrupt departure from the conversation. I want to get back into the ring. I hope you don't mind.) Ok. Basically by harm you mean the su...

What is your explanation for why the system (person A with the dice) is behaving probabilistically? You mentioned an important element in the system -...

Thanks for the effort. You've made many many interesting statements in your post. I'm grateful. Thanks. I was using the "plucked chicken" example to o...

:smile: :up: